Lola

by Melissa Scrivner Love

  No, Lola thinks. I can’t die.

  “No,” Garcia says. “Not without you. And I won’t have to.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Not gonna let nothing happen to you,” Garcia says, proper grammar dropped as Lola watches him swallow what she thinks must be tears. Still, she can’t help but think Garcia’s use of a double negative implies he will, in fact, let something happen to her.

  “Something doesn’t fit,” Lola says, remembering Andrea.

  “Lot of shit like that in this world.” Garcia sits on the foxhunting chair’s footstool. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands, so he starts stroking Lola’s ankle bone. He should have known to go for her shoulders, her neck, her feet even, but the awkward gesture soothes Lola.

  “No, I mean with that prosecutor…”—Lola was about to call Andrea a bitch but finds she can’t—“…lady.”

  “Huh?”

  “Andrea with the three names. Saw her outside the coffee shop today.”

  “Rich people,” Garcia says, shaking his head at the coffee habits of the privileged.

  “She was at that funky-ass furniture store, too,” Lola says.

  “What you thinkin’? They workin’ together?” Garcia asks.

  “Could be.” Lola plays at the fabric of a foxhunter’s fat ass with her fingernails. “Can’t figure why, though.”

  “Thought you said she was buildin’ a case against him?”

  “She is.” Lola thinks back to the file Hector swiped from Andrea’s briefcase. It’s been two years since Eldridge got on the DA’s radar. Two years, and all Andrea, the tenacious pit bull prosecutor, has to show for her investigation into Eldridge Waterston is a few sheets of personal details like address, phone number, hair and eye color, and his wife’s favorite stores. Lola knows Eldridge must guard the actual details of his business—offshore account numbers, storage facilities, trusted lieutenants—with care, but still, a woman as determined as Andrea could surely have thrown the names of a few known associates into the case she’s building.

  “Where you going?” Garcia asks, because she’s pulled her ankle from his calloused hands to tear across the room.

  The old desktop whirs and shakes as Lola fires it up. The spinning colored wheel going round and round reminds Lola of her own mind, frozen as it tries to figure out her next move. When the Internet browser finally opens, Lola searches for “New Horizons Rehabilitation Center.” The full name. She wants the official website. The rehab facility is the only thing she can think of that connects all the “good” pieces—Andrea, the fierce prosecutor who dropped the center’s card on the homeless couple; Sadie, Eldridge’s withering addict courier who’s flourishing there, not knowing who’s paying her bill; Sergeant Bubba, the dirty cop who dropped Sadie there before he disappeared two million in Eldridge’s heroin.

  The website appears in bright, peaceful pixels. Lola feels Garcia standing behind her, afraid to touch her now that she’s back in work mode. She tries to click on the “Staff” link, but the computer fucks up and sends her on a virtual tour. Lola clicks through the photos of this Malibu wonderland—white sheets, ocean views, massage therapy, organic, gluten-free bullshit menu. The computer doesn’t let her go back until she’s seen the entirety of this facility open only to people who have fucked up their lives.

  “Must be nice,” Garcia mutters, looking at the same pictures.

  “No shit.”

  The spinning wheel relents, and Lola navigates her way to the staff page. The first name there stops her heart like a miniblast of heroin.

  Dr. Jack Whitely, Founder.

  The photo next to the name shows the clean-cut, handsome man who accompanied Andrea to Room & Board. Here, he wears a white coat and professional smile. The picture is a head-and-shoulders shot, so Lola can’t see the wedding ring she knows is there.

  Lola remembers Andrea telling the homeless couple her husband was a psychiatrist. And Eldridge’s courier Sadie is staying at his rehab facility on someone else’s tab. And Andrea is everywhere Eldridge is.

  They are working together, Lola knows it now, but she can’t decipher the benefits of what she presumes is their symbiotic relationship. Eldridge, drug lord going up against the cartel. Andrea, no-nonsense prosecutor assigned to investigate Eldridge. Bubba, Andrea’s friend on the force.

  Andrea stalls out the case against Eldridge. Why? What’s in it for her? Lola looks back to the Malibu castle Andrea’s husband runs. Money. It must be. Is Eldridge paying Andrea tribute to let him keep doing business in what he considers his city, and she considers hers?

  They are both wrong, Lola thinks. This city is mine.

  The next morning, Lola serves hot coffee in Styrofoam cups to Marcos and Jorge. They are standing on her porch. Lola can’t see much farther than her driveway because of the fog. It is too early.

  “Nothin’ yet, boss,” Jorge says.

  Marcos grunts at Jorge, a reminder that they don’t know who’s watching. The legit population of Huntington Park rises early for six a.m. shifts and long commutes that would become insufferable if they waited until rush hour. To anyone watching, it should look like the gang boss’s girlfriend is serving coffee to her man’s soldiers.

  “Sorry,” Jorge says.

  Lola holds up a hand to let him know it’s nothing. “You checked his apartment?”

  “His apartment, your mom’s place, all of it. Hector’s not there.”

  Amani, Lola thinks. If Hector’s not at his place or Maria’s, he must be with Amani. But she can’t tell her men that.

  “You want us to get your ma back?” It’s Marcos, licking his lips. To him, Hector, the wayward brother, is already dead.

  “I’ll deal with her later,” Lola says. She knows Marcos just wants an excuse to shoot some people, but she reads a subtext he didn’t intend—Why don’t you give a shit about your mother?

  She sends them into the fog with coffee refills and blueberry muffins removed from individual plastic wrap. It’s the best she can do this early.

  Lola tries Hector’s cell phone at nine o’clock sharp. Bangers don’t keep bankers’ hours, but she can’t bring herself to start making business calls before what the real world considers a civilized time. If she’s being honest with herself, her call to Hector isn’t business, it’s personal; but she’s not, so it’s not.

  “Hey, got a job for you. Hit me back,” Lola says. She knows she has more of a chance of Hector returning her call if there’s a task assigned to it. You have to return your boss’s call. You can tell your sister to fuck off.

  “Still nothin’?” Garcia asks.

  Lola shakes her head. She scatters organic fresh berries over Lucy’s pancakes before setting the plate in front of the wide-eyed little girl. Their trip to Whole Foods yesterday, a first for all three of them, cost almost a grand in dirty drug money. They loaded two carts full of fruit, vegetables, gummy vitamins, bottled water, and all natural soaps for body and hair. Still, no matter how many times Lola washes and combs Lucy’s hair, it dries in clumpy strings that make her look dirty. Lola has heard that it takes seven years for all the cells in a human body to be replaced. If she cares for Lucy for seven years, perhaps she’ll have a whole new girl, one who has forgotten her childhood traumas and turns up her nose at nonorganic produce. Maybe Lola can replace Lucy’s sullied innocence with naïveté.

  “What you up to today?” Garcia asks.

  “Gotta get Lucy to school,” Lola says, even as she begins wrapping some hummus in a spinach tortilla. She doesn’t know what else to put inside, but Lucy’s first school lunch is missing color. Lola grabs a red pepper, a cucumber, and some tomatoes from the refrigerator. Should she put cheese on hummus? She doesn’t want to send Lucy to kindergarten with peanut butter and jelly. She wants to make an effort, but now she’s afraid she’s just fucking up, that Lucy will go hungry, or, worse, suffer ridicule from the other children.

  It is Tuesday. Lola has until Friday to pick her side—Eldridge or the fa
t man. She hasn’t decided what to do about Andrea, because she doesn’t know the extent of the prosecutor’s partnership with Eldridge.

  Either way she goes, Lola has decided there’s a decent chance she won’t survive the week. That’s why she’s picked out a private kindergarten for Lucy. She filled out an application on paper first, before she typed her responses into the computer, but she answered the questions differently in her head. Why do you think your child will thrive at Blooming Gardens? Because she’s survived more abuse and trauma in one day of her childhood than most of your wealthy bullshit angels will their entire lifetime. Tell us about your child’s likes and dislikes. Likes days when she gets at least one meal. Dislikes being molested by her junkie mother’s boyfriend. How does your child react when faced with a problem? She gets wide-eyed and doesn’t let herself cry, because crying where she’s from only earns her a beating. Does your child have a nut allergy? Lola had typed NO in all caps in response to this last question, because she believes nut allergies are a luxury reserved for people who can afford to be picky.

  Lucy needs fruit in her lunchbox, Lola thinks, frantic.

  “Apples,” she says. “Do you like apples?” she asks Lucy.

  “I don’t know,” Lucy responds. The answer doesn’t surprise Lola, who washes an apple twice and dries it with a paper towel before placing it next to the hummus wrap in the lunchbox Lucy picked out. The little girl had ignored the superheroes and princesses in straight gendered lines, going instead for a solid bright red square that reminds Lola of the color of fresh blood.

  “You gonna eat something?” Garcia asks, serving himself from the stack of pancakes on a platter in the center of the table. He moves quickly, slapping butter onto the cakes and dousing them in syrup, then shoveling large bites into his mouth without stopping in between. Lola notices Lucy doing the same, and she can’t tell if the girl is imitating Garcia or trying to quell a hunger that won’t stop burning inside her. Lola’s not going to implement any kind of table etiquette for Lucy. The girl needs to eat, however she wants, whenever she wants. Lola doesn’t want mealtime charged with any more stress than it already is for Lucy, who shows up at the table when Lola calls unsure if there will be nourishment for her. Lola wonders how many times Rosie offered what little food she could afford to a man over her own child. Lola’s heart beats in rage as she daydreams about what she will do to Rosie if they’re ever alone. She thinks back to the story of El Coleccionista, drawing and quartering a man with four ropes and four cars, tearing him limb from limb and making sure it took a good half hour. When it comes to creating painful and novel deaths, the cartel wins every time.

  Lola contemplates what possible torture the fat man will cook up for her, if she obeys Eldridge and kills Darrel King. Her life has become one awful romantic comedy—which man will she choose to serve? Lola wants her own ending.

  “Not hungry,” Lola tells Garcia. But when Lucy looks up at her, not understanding, Lola sits at the table and fills her own plate. The cakes turn to dust in her mouth, and she chews too long before another questioning look from Lucy reminds her to swallow.

  “When does school start?” Lucy asks. She had sprung from bed this morning, bouncing with anticipation at the thought of going somewhere children outnumber adults.

  “Half an hour,” Lola replies, and Lucy looks to the clock, seeing if she can figure out where the hand will have to be for them to begin their journey.

  Twenty minutes later, Lola straps Lucy into the booster seat they shelled out three hundred drug dollars for yesterday, and the two are on the road. Garcia wrote Lucy’s name on both backpack and lunchbox last night. He and Lola had hovered in the living room, not discussing Lola’s business predicament, but laying out everything Lucy needed for school: pencils sharpened to a perfect point, more crayons than the supply list required, clean clothes. They hadn’t had a drop to drink, but together they got soused on the items before them, the stepping-stones to a decent life.

  Now, Lucy drinks in the world as Lola drives them west from South Central, no sign of the cartel in their rearview. Blooming Gardens Elementary School is located in Culver City, a neighborhood that, from Lola’s research, seems to be up-and-coming. She hadn’t wanted to chance sticking Lucy in with true Westsiders, little Brentwood bitches and burgeoning hedge-fund managers. Together, Lola and Lucy watch the landscape change from window bars, lowriders, and taco trucks to day spas, wine bars, and two-story strip malls.

  “Pretty…” Lucy breathes in wonder at one of these structures unique to Los Angeles, painted the color of sick skin and containing a Coffee Bean, a vegan restaurant, and a sterile nail salon.

  Lucy is a true Angeleno, Lola thinks, admiring the beauty of a stacked strip mall.

  “It is,” Lola agrees, because she loves this town, too.

  Blooming Gardens is on the corner of a residential street. Lola notes the dead end nearby, which is good, she thinks, to prevent traffic from mowing down small children. She pulls in to the drop-off line and eyes the SUVs, the luxury foreign wagons, all washed and buffed to a gleam. Mothers in matching workout tops and pants kiss little darlings good-bye. Fathers in starched collars dole out bear hugs and ’atta boys before pulling away, already firing up their Bluetooths to get the day’s business going.

  Lola doesn’t want to drop Lucy with a kiss and a smile. She wants to walk her inside, so she pulls to a stop at the curb and puts on her emergency blinkers. She feels flutters in her stomach—nerves she never felt venturing into school for the first time. To her, school meant eight hours away from home and heroin. She wishes the public schools in Huntington Park had gone through June and started up in early August, as Blooming Gardens does, instead of allowing her hot, stifling summers trying to fill the days with hope that wasn’t there.

  “It’s nice,” Lucy observes.

  Lola nods, unable to speak for the choke in her throat. She doesn’t know whether to take Lucy’s hand, or if the affectionate gesture will embarrass the little girl. Lola decides against it, since her parking job has drawn stares. Lola has never been good at getting close to the curb, and now it feels like all the parental eyes are turned on her in collective judgment.

  As she and Lucy walk their gawking gauntlet, Lola realizes these parents could give a shit about her parking job. They are looking at the car itself, a Honda peppered with the dents and scratches of a useful life. They are looking at Lola, in her baggy cargo pants and tank top that clings to her trim waist, tight as leather across a bongo drum. Who is she? What does she do for a living? What does she feel her child stands to learn from Blooming Gardens? Is Lucy a scholarship student? Lola feels their application questions searing into her brain as she and Lucy walk.

  She feels a light touch at her side and realizes Lucy is reaching for her hand. Lola squeezes the little girl’s palm in her own, noticing the sweat there. Lucy is nervous, too.

  “It’s okay,” Lola whispers.

  “It is?” Lucy asks, looking at the cruel, higher-class judges that bar the escape routes on either side of them.

  “Yes,” Lola responds, soaking in the stares of the mothers and fathers in society that matter, the ones who can drop their kids off at private school and pick them up and take them home and feed them organic afternoon snacks and provide encouragement as they bend their precious little heads over homework that both challenges and stimulates. Lola recalls her own childhood, exhaustion at her desk after nights spent cowering in her room, listening to the low growls between her mother and another strange man, the wondering if Maria would send him in to her. She remembers free school lunches, pumped full of sugar, that woke her up for a brief fifteen minutes in the afternoon, then sank her by the time she got home to park herself in front of the television, not watching whatever cheery sitcom she could find. It seemed cruel, to be able to access normal American life on the black box, when Lola’s own living room didn’t live up to any average standard. Why point out to her, a child, how much of a failure she already was?


  “Ma’am,” a woman’s voice calls. It’s half cheerful, half don’t fuck with me. When Lola turns, she sees a tall woman with kind, stern eyes. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah,” Lola says. “Got a new student. I mean, I have a new student.”

  Lucy buries her face in Lola’s cargo pants.

  “School started two weeks ago,” the woman says. “Was your daughter on the list?”

  Lucy buries her face even deeper, but when the little girl dares to glance out of her nest, Lola sees her cheeks are flushed a rich pink that borders on red. Is the emotion painted on Lucy’s face embarrassment or pride?

  “What list?” Lola can’t keep the edge out of her voice. She is unaccustomed to interrogation.

  “The waiting list?”

  Lola blinks, and the tall woman shifts her weight. Lola sees something in her relent as she says, “Why don’t we go in my office and talk?”

  It’s only as the woman walks them away that Lola notices the gauntlet of parents she and Lucy were walking has not dissolved, but swollen to what could become a mob if someone were to throw a few choice words and some tear gas.

  “Now,” the woman says less than a minute later. Her office is a simple square that’s a step above small. It’s filled with gushing letters from students—“I luv ms lara”—and toys. Ms. Laura forgoes the high-backed rolling desk chair and settles on the sofa with Lola and Lucy, who stares at the dollhouse in the corner. Ms. Laura notices. “Would you like to play with the dollhouse while I talk to your mother?”

  Lucy looks up at Lola, who nods, but Lucy stays put. Lola realizes with a bullet-sized pang that Lucy doesn’t know what a dollhouse is or how to play with one.

  “What’s your name?” Ms. Laura asks, leaning forward, her eyes shining at the little girl. Lola recognizes compassion there, not pity, and in that moment, Lola falls head over heels for Ms. Laura.